Alan Titchmarsh

TV presenter and Britain's best-loved gardening expert

Box clever for winter show

THINK of evergreens and I’m sure some of you will think “public lavatory plants”. Admittedly local authorities do use them quite a bit to disguise the ablutions in town centres and yes they can sometimes seem a tad dusty, dingy or
unexciting.

A lawn looks 100 per cent more exciting if you add a hen and chicks made from trimmed box and a bare winter border looks all the more enchanting with a few box balls that will work brilliantly with spring bulbs and the summer

Topiary is the obvious starting point.

perennials that follow.

A tall conifer spiral or a formal standard bay looks brilliant by the front door and if you have one of those beds where nothing much grows or you don’t have time for fussy flowers, plant a group of box spheres in different sizes and let them grow into each other to make an unruly pile, as seen at all the best stately homes.

Spread gravel or cobblestones all round to create an easy-care result. An annual clip or two at most is all it takes to keep the shapes in trim.

Evergreens team well with midwinter plants to create eye-catching seasonal “cameos”. In a small space, a group of hellebores makes a great background for a carpet of snowdrops and winter aconites.

They’ll start to flower shortly after their diminutive neighbours are finished.

Ivies offer great scope for creativity. Turn a row of plain garden steps into a stunning foliar staircase by planting

trailing ivies up the outer edges to outline them and train more out horizontally across the risers (but prune back stems growing on to the steps or they’ll be slippery and unsafe underfoot Ivies are brilliant for training over topiary frames in tubs on the patio or over a broken bird table or an old wooden chair – any support in a storm.

For a novel wall-covering that stands out in winter team ivy with winter jasmine so you see green stems and yellow starshaped flowers peeking through the ivy foliage.

A garden structure such as an arch, gazebo or pergola that usually looks pretty lifeless at this time of year becomes a superb all-year-round feature given the evergreen treatment.

Just add an evergreen clematis such as Clematis armandii (spring flowering, white, or choose the more unusual pink